WAAAAAHHHHHHH! Having conventions is like double Hitler! Can we just retroactively decide we didn’t have one? Or better yet that we didn’t have to have any pretenses to democracy at all? WAAAAAAHHHH!

It’s been what? Less than a week since the Republicans attempted to have their big marketing push for The Smiler and his vat-grown VP candidate? And not even the paid hacks can manage to spin it as anything other than a catastrophe?

Apparently there’s a lot of paid whores for the GOP looking at this upcoming election much like a deer looks into the headlights of an oncoming truck.

‘The closest thing to eternal life is a government program,” Ronald Reagan once said. I suspect that today he might single out the $136 million in taxpayer subsidies that go to the two major parties for their national conventions. Established in the 1970s when people thought conventions might still decide something, the subsidies keep flowing and are even indexed for inflation. They now amount to welfare for corporate and union interests and the political class — providing the infrastructure for wheeling, dealing, and frolicking.

Established in the 1970s. First appearing in 1832 as the replacement for the caucus system. Same thing, right?

Fuck, we’ve had National Conventions longer than we’ve allowed filthy regular people select our presidential candidates. But thanks for dog-whistling Jimmy Carter so loud it made a couple of the racists in the front go deaf.

Few people suggest that the parties should abandon conventions completely, but the subsidies prop up an archaic structure that needs retooling.

Uh huh. We’re not saying that we want a return to the smoky bars where Party Bosses decided the candidates with nary a thought to the electorate. All we’re saying is the current system needs reforms.

You know? The same reforms that Social Security and Medicare need, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

“Some pundits lament the demise of the old conventions,” writes Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. “But they couldn’t be revived without banning long-distance telephone, the Internet, and jet travel.”

…We could have “old conventions” if we made it impossible for any outside the super rich could possibly attend? That doesn’t even…

To be fair, there’s going to be a lot of that this post. John Superfund jumps around more than a long-jumper with icy-hot-soaked shorts. I think he thinks that this will somehow hide his panicked sobs as he imagines the inevitable comparison of the Democrat’s public-filled stadium convention to their heavily-controlled parade of racists and doddering old white men.

Spoiler alert? It will not.

For most voters, the conventions today are increasingly an anachronism. Only 14 percent of people told pollster Scott Rasmussen that they wanted more than the nightly one hour of prime-time coverage the broadcast networks aired.

Even with such limited coverage, ratings were down 30 percent or more this year from the 2008 Republican convention. Only one in five unaffiliated voters bothered to tune in for more than a few minutes.

If there was no better sign that the Republican Party needs to shut down the few thin remaining scraps of democracy it allows its constituents, I don’t know what it is.

…Actually, I think that’s his straight up argument here…

In theory, about three-quarters of the taxpayer funding is earmarked for security, but that money is fungible — it makes the two overblown extravaganzas possible. Security for presidents, vice presidents, congressional leaders, and presidential nominees is paid for separately by the Secret Service and is provided wherever those figures go.

Some political players are blowing the whistle and challenging the taxpayer subsidies.

Yes. They are “blowing the whistle” now. Like right this second. It’s almost like they want to prevent something from happening that will happen very soon and the inevitable comparisons it will draw to, say, some not described event where a senile actor ranted at an inanimate chair. Hypothetically speaking.

Cause yeah, arguing that Barack Obama isn’t allowed to campaign against your candidate really is the only hope the Republican Party has left at this point.

The original Smiler may have won against The Beast, but your Smiler is going against black Mr. Rogers. This was never going to be competitive even before you started scoring own goals and testing post-reality campaign styles.

calls the gatherings “summertime parties” and says having them financially fend for themselves would demonstrate “strong leadership to getting our budget crisis in control.”

Yeah, hands up anyone who thinks he was saying remotely the same thing when Sarah Palin was enjoying her post-convention bump in 2008?

Fuck, hands up anyone who thinks any of these “deficit hawks” gave one fuck about all the “public money” going to party conventions before the Republican Party found a way to invent a negative convention bump?

Yeah, pretty much.

Hey, dickwads! Not televising your failures won’t make it any less apparent that you are a party of old out-of-touch white men bristling in pure rage at the “young ‘uns and niggers destroying the country”.

Exposed to sober analysis, the practice of lavishing taxpayer-funded largesse on convention luminaries cannot be justified when the public is in uproar over abuses such as the General Services Administration’s spending $823,000 on a “team building” meeting in Las Vegas.

Well, yes, people do tend to get a little upset when public money is used to pay for someone’s public bender and prostitute bill.

Your point?

Cause from here, all I’m hearing is:

“WE PAID HOW MUCH FOR CLINT EASTWOOD TO BECOME A NATIONAL JOKE?!? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US!”

And let’s be honest. That’s pretty much the take-home message from that paragraph.

Indeed, it appears that conventions are slowly shrinking in length — if only because of intervention from Mother Nature.

Whoa, whoa. Hold up there, Sally.

Are you seriously, seriously using a single data-point to argue a trend?

Yes, this current Republican National Convention was delayed a day because some dipshit forgot that it’s Hurricane Season in Florida. But that’s not a trend. That’s just a regular old fuckup.

Much like these concern troll arguments against conventions. If they last to next presidential election, I’ll be shocked. Fuck, I’ll be shocked if they last longer than the Democratic National Convention.

In 2008, Representative David Dreier of California, the Republican convention’s parliamentarian, developed an alternate plan under which all the legally required business at that year’s convention in St. Paul, Minn., could be conducted in a few hours in the event that the delegates and officials from the Gulf Coast had to go home to deal with Hurricane Gustav. This year, Democrats will conduct their business in three days instead of four. Republicans in Tampa found they could chop off a day from their schedule of activities with hardly anyone’s noticing.

Some politicians say conventions would shrink even more were it not for the government subsidy.

Government shrinking til’ we drown it in the bathtub, blah blah, growing fat on the public money teat…

I’m sorry, but is there an inebriated ape on the planet that doesn’t find this crap transparently pathetic? Conventions are each party’s attempt to “put on their best face” before the election season turns into the final sprint. Most of the money spent on the “spectacle” comes from the same handful of rich fuckers it usually does.

Again, no one gave a fuck about the miniscule drop in the bucket that was the legal public funding for conventions (mostly in place to give third parties the illusion of being legitimate contenders in the election) before the Republican Party spent who knows how many millions of dollars reminding everyone why the GOP is literally that crazy uncle you avoid at Thanksgiving.

“The staging overshadows the politics,” Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) told a group of National Review editors last week

Yes, the party whose convention strategy consisted of seeing if a campaign strategy entirely composed of disconnected market-tested buzzwords could work is suddenly complaining about “staging overshadowing politics”.

But not because the strategy failed or because they want to set up an argument that Obama having a convention is proof he’s a demon-possessed Kenyan Marxist from Mars.

No no no!

They are just deeply, deeply concerned about the important political issues of the day being glossed over.

Like women’s rights and all the politicians arguing against them… eyah, i mean, ooh, maybe the current Great Depression and how the Republicans have been deliberately making things worse to help their 2012 chanceeeeee. Bad example. Maybe… no, not that, that’s right out…

No no, we’ll come up with something. Promise. Probably about November 7th or so. But in the meantime, we just wanted you to know how deeply deeply concerned we are about this… since about 4 days ago.

Count House Speaker John Boehner as another skeptic: “These are very expensive propositions to put on,” he told a group of reporters at a Christian Science Monitor lunch last week. He predicted that both Republicans and Democrats “will assess whether this type of convention is worth the tremendous resources put into it.”

I’ll go further: Whoever is elected president this November will have to go through such stringent belt-tightening when it comes to discretionary budget items that the convention subsidy will land on the chopping block. Any political party that dares to oppose getting rid of the subsidy will be in the crosshairs of voters.

So maybe Reagan will be proved wrong after all and the convention subsidy won’t be eternal. All of us will then discover that the two major parties and their allies can pay for whatever kind of convention makes sense to them without taxpayers having to foot much of the bill. Indeed, that’s just the way it was done from the time when the first convention was held — in 1832 to nominate Andrew Jackson — right up through the 1970s.

Oh now you remember that conventions have been around for nearly 200 years. Shame that the first one wasn’t Andrew Jackson, but was actually for the “Anti-Masonic Party”. But hey, why bother subjecting yourself to the strenuous task of looking something up on Wikipedia when you’ve got a page of full-bore concern troll and bullshit faux-deficit-hawkery to shove onto the tubes.

Don’t worry, though, the desperate half-remembered inaccurate factoid thrown on the end doesn’t at all ruin the delicious tang of your hyperventilating crying jag.

Oh but that this were but the beginning of a long dark winter for the 27% as they languish in obscurity never to fuck over our country or our planet again…

I scarce dare dream.

In the meantime however, let me tip the lemon juice all over their self-inflicted wounds.

I know. I know you are really really pants-shittingly terrified about how you’re going to make The Smiler look like a Regular Joe when he can’t even pretend to act like a plebian millionaire, but really? Really?!? Ripping off Soviet propaganda?!?!?

but really? Really?!? Ripping off Soviet propaganda?!?!?
Well if the NR really really want to devote their front-cover real estate to embedding their candidates within fascist totalitarian iconography, then go for it.

I’m hoping that it is a smartass liberal who is going over the top to show just how silly “stand your ground” laws are. Also, it just might be a great way to sucker rubes into buying a lot of over priced t-shirts and bumper stickers.

I am beginning to wonder whether NR authors are entirely sincere when they condemn the prominence of Che Guevara in popular culture and accuse anyone with a Che t-shirt or poster of complicity in all crimes committed in the course of of the Cuban revolution.

Despite poo-pooing from the Zombie, I think it’s a Fountainhead reference.

IIRC, Ayn Rand loathed Degenerate Art in all its manifestations and came up with ingenious reasons why heroic human figures in the Totalitarian style comprised the Only True Objectivist Art. So no other aesthetic preference is available for subsequent generations of free-thinking independent-minded objectivists.

The fact is, voting is a scared right real patriots should protect with their lives. They need to make sure the Marxist fraud does not win, and therefore any black or hispanic voter, but voting for Obama is automatically committing voter fraud and should be dealt with as any traiter.

To be fair, I think the “started in the 70s” thing was a reference to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, founded in 1971, especially since he talks about conventions “from 1832 through the 1970s”. It’s still bullshit because the fund is maintained only with funds people designate for that exact purpose on their tax forms ($3 per person, according to Wikipedia), but it’s pretty clear he isn’t saying that conventions only started in the 1970s. (Though, interestingly, primaries did.)

They need to make sure the Marxist fraud does not win, and therefore any black or hispanic voter, but voting for Obama is automatically committing voter fraud and should be dealt with as any traiter.

Ha ha, very funny, Fake Gary, but I actually ran into someone on G+ last week who was arguing in all seriousness that everyone who votes for Obama needs to be executed for treason. So the looniest of the loons really do think it’d rock to kill 70 million people, and I expect them to start getting interviews on Hannity’s show before long…

Has everyone forgotten that caucus or meeting or whatever it was Obama held early in his term with Republican congressional leaders? IIRC, he absolutely schooled Ryan. I have a thrilling feeling that that was a little precursor of what is to come.

From that sentence, the nameless commenter would be me. Although, I didn’t actually do anything anyway. I just saw the post on my Tumblr dashboard and thought it was funny.

Regarding Paul Ryan’s weasel words, do you think that if Biden said, “Ryan is a massive douchebag” during the debate, Paul Ryan would be satisfied by the explanation, “No. I wasn’t talking about you, dude. I was talking about this guy I know named Ryan Taylor. Everybody hates that guy”?

After all, in that hypothetical statement, Biden didn’t specify which Ryan he was talking about.

But at least there WAS one in 2008 … how much of a failure are you when even a clown like Sarahcuda outperforms you with her debut on the national political stage?

ANSWER: As much of one as Paul Ryan is right now.

(Note: This comment is neither an endorsement of nor a prohibition against Paul Ryan taking to the campaign trail adorned with an arsenal of low-cut dresses with high hemlines & big-name designer fuck-me pumps, nor of his donning visible toenail polish or winking at crowds)

Disemvowelled Jim has made me giggle, although as far as having to look at All Lyin’ sashaying around in revealing dresses and fuck me pumps is something that I most definitely DO. NOT. WANT. (The winking may be a tic…)

But at least there WAS one in 2008 … how much of a failure are you when even a clown like Sarahcuda outperforms you with her debut on the national political stage?

Not a fair comparison. Old white soreheads fixate on boobs like cats on the laser pointer dot. Can’t say that I blame them, and I like my batshit crazy bitches as much as the next dude, but I do not like the idea that a batshit crazy geezer magnet is one stair fall away from having the nuclear launch codes and her own bomb proof bunker.

(Note: This comment is neither an endorsement of nor a prohibition against Paul Ryan taking to the campaign trail adorned with an arsenal of low-cut dresses with high hemlines & big-name designer fuck-me pumps, nor of his donning visible toenail polish or winking at crowds)

Womens’ groups in Turkey have praised her as a heroine. It turned out that the woman, aged 26 and a mother-of-two, had been abused by her attacker for months before she took her revenge and was being blackmailed.

Rapist’s fetus would be next but Turkish law outlaws abortions after the 10th week.

buggy, this 17 year old girl was sleeping when an intruder attacked her and tried to rape her. He stabbed her 17 times including in her head and her defending hands. Little did he suspect that she is a boxing student and she fought back to such an extent that he fled without fulfilling his foul purpose.
Count another one for the wimmins.

Money is fungible? Yes. Money is money. That a person can spend money on one thing and not another isn’t some profound revelation about the quality of money to make decisions about what to spend itself on.

Moderately OT: Saw “The Campaign” last night, and honestly, if it weren’t for about 15 years of anecdotal evidence I would have a hard time to believe that punching a baby, leaving a profane message meant for your mistress on the wrong phone and turning a sex tape into a political ad would hurt your chances of winning.

Does anyone know if that’s the whole story? If that’s enough of it to get a clear picture, I can’t see why they should pay for gender reassignment either. It’s not critical to his/her health, strictly an elective surgery, and while there are psychological benefits, I’m not sure what real value there is in giving this person a costly treatment.

Yet when you asked Rove about SmarTech, he insisted he “had no idea who it was.” What do you think of Rove’s denial, and why do you devote so much of your book to the company?

When I repeated the question to Rove, his response morphed into a classic Watergate-like non-denial denial in which he claimed to be “so many layers removed” from such operations that he didn’t “recall” the company. Whatever the state of his memory, Rove’s relationship to SmarTech is emblematic of how he operates: with no fingerprints, via entities that serve his interests in extraordinary ways even though he has no visible ties to them.

This Muir entry in the Shittiest Editorial cartoon of the day manages to get a bath shot of one of Muirs anatomically impossible females, into a “Whut iffen orl the Liburals were kilt?” wankfest.
He is a waste of oxygen.

Cerb- the “radical feminism and her sister marxism” is unwittingly revealing as he equates women with his two pants-wetting horrors.
He has a talent for using colours that could have gained him a decent living writing supermarket price tickets but he has to inflict his mostly incomprehensible, and always unfunny, comics upon the poor sad world.

I listened to Fresh Air on the way home from work, after Michelle’s Speech. The guest was Mickey Edwards (former R-OK, 1976-1992) talking about how the political process has changed since his tenure on the Hill and especially how folks like Newtie have polarized the political process to the point where the Congress no longer represents the people, but the parties.

I’d vote for Michelle without hesitation. Corey booker too. Also that Deval Patrick dude. I admire his fire.

Wasn’t it Corey Booker that said exposing Romney’s record at Bain Capital was unfair? Because those were the words of a weasel. If we can’t call out the bastards who are getting rich by making things worse for the rest of us, who can we call out?

I know big finance is a giant source of easy money with which to campaign, but until they are no longer “too big to fail” they collectively hold a knife to the throat of the world economy.

I think that big finance has us in a corner. Between credit card debt, the housing mortgage bubble, the current college debt bubble and other nefarious projects too numerous to count, big finance has been able to vacuum up nearly all of the growth for the last decade or so.

tl;dr: fuck big finance and to hell with anyone that builds a career on being nice to them.

Which includes all republicans and most democrats. Just look at the epic whine created when Obammy had the temerity to mildly criticize the financial geniuses who blew up the economy.

These fuckers know that if the populist ball really gets rolling (like what happened with Occupy) that being on the wrong side of pitchforks might not be too pleasant. That’s why they cannot allow even the most milquetoast negative utterance to stand.

Sometimes I wonder if they really drink their own koolaid. Do they really think that credit default swaps and other arcane financial products add something of value to society? Do they really believe that only strapping young bucks and welfare queens are sucking down welfare because they really enjoy not working? And who seriously believes that cutting taxes on billionaires will stimulate the economy? Jeebus help us.

No, I think they really really like campaign donations, and who has more expendable capital laying around than a corporate raider? Nobody believes that cutting taxes for billionaires does anything other than cut taxes for billionaires and shit the burden to the middle class. Their answer: Cut government so we don’t need those tax revenues, (EXCEPT DEFENSE because America FUCK YEAH), and stop helping the poor entirely. They’re well positioned now because they have the old people convinced that their benefits don’t change, and they obviously don’t give a fat shit what they’re leaving behind for others, and the younger people have all bought into the Paul bullshit, thinking they’re capable of betting on the stock market for their retirement and that student loans are pretty cool.

Imagine you have a friend who a few years back heard that if you feed poodles money they will shit out gold bricks. So your friend starts feeding his hard-earned cash to all the pampered poodles he can find, and they gobble those bills down. But, surprise, surprise, despite what he heard, the dogs end up shitting shit. Still, he clings to this bizarre, completely disproven idea: poodles shit gold. Now, after some time, he’s low on cash. You tell your friend to stop putting out plates of money for the goddamned poodles. No, your friend says. Instead, he must cut back on other things, like doctor visits and food and more, just so he’ll have the spare money to give the fucking dogs. “One day, these little bitches are gonna pay off,” he tells you, sounding completely crazy, “and I’ll be on easy street.” But until then, he’s just got hands that stink like dog shit. And there’s your lesson in Republican economics.

No, I think they really really like campaign donations, and who has more expendable capital laying around than a corporate raider?

This, They are getting in bed with the most damaging force in America today. The finance ‘industry’ and the MBAs who listen to them.

Forty years ago if you asked a person to describe a well run company, they would mention things like: they have cash on hand to cover expenses, they spend money on R&D, they develop expertise and promote from within, they pay well and promote loyalty, they make money and share it with employees and stockholders, they have a highly trained and motivated full time workforce, they sell useful products or services at a reasonable price, they own their facilities and building outright, they have benefits and a pension plan.

Now each and every item on that list is a red flag to an MBA to cut cut cut. Don’t have cash on hand, disburse that shit as executive bonuses, consulting fees and maybe a stock dividend. don’t spend on R&D, just copy from the next guy. Don’t promote from within or pay for training, just hire someone qualified and underemployed, and pay them shit for part time work with no benefits. Offshore every facility you can to a place with no labor or environmental regulations. Don’t ‘make’ money, adjust your profits and expenses, so you’re ‘losing’ money and pay no taxes, if necessary set up a shell company in the Cayman island and book all your revenue there. Raise prices continually, and only quit raising them when you start losing lots of business. Raid the pension plan to pay for your sudden liquidity crisis, cause you paid all of your ready cash out as bonuses.

All of those changes make short term sense to squeeze money out of a profitable stable business, but they are no way to have a company that can endure even a modest downturn. And the MBA’s and finance jerks and business consultants, come out smelling like a rose, while they close factories, fire their workers and complain like hell the economy went to shit, and no one’s buying anything.

That comes close, but it ignores the fact that every single one of those goddamn politicians, excluding teabaggers who have the economic knowledge of your average lemming, knows for a fact that there will never be a gold brick. So their handlers set up a system that allows them to leave office somehow magically much more wealthy than when they entered.
Bribes are just an operating expense to vulture capitalists.

Forty years ago if you asked a person to describe a well run company, they would mention things like: they have cash on hand to cover expenses, they spend money on R&D, they develop expertise and promote from within, they pay well and promote loyalty, they make money and share it with employees and stockholders, they have a highly trained and motivated full time workforce, they sell useful products or services at a reasonable price, they own their facilities and building outright, they have benefits and a pension plan.

I think most small businesses strive for those goals even now. It’s not until you get to the midsize-to-multinational that the MBAs come in to trash the place and steal the towels. If I had to choose just one gripe about the Democratic approach to business, it would be that they kowtow too much to the giant corporations and their bankster enablers and make life too hard for small businessmen.

If they could make that distinction, they could destroy the Chamber of Commerce as a propaganda center and bring lots of small businesses on board with the program.

I believe it was the Harvard Business School that developed the theory – in the 1920s, IIRC – that you didn’t have to know anything about what a business does, just about how to mange a business. I’d be hard-pressed o think of a more pernicious management method.

Forty years ago, an asshole who is known to have stashed several million dollars into offshore accounts to dodge taxes and auditing, he would absolutely be a non-starter as a presidential candidate.

Forty years ago, the corporation as a person would be laughable to just about everybody who works for a living.

It was also the Harvard BS that espoused the theory that anything that’s good for General Motors (as an example) is good for the country. That slowly became the dominant theory which allowed for big business to get everyone’s future tied up in the stock market. Nowadays, many people silently cheer to themselves when a company in their portfolio lays off several thousand workers because they know the value of that stock will climb higher.

I’m just learning how to manage a small business, but I spent almost 20 years learning the business before I was in ANY way capable of managing one. In N_Bs example, an MBA with no experience in architecture trying to run a large architectural firm has a pretty predictable outcome–total disaster.

Small businesses are run by people who know the business, they do try to promote from within, and I think that by and large they give a shit what happens to their employees. And the successful ones are the ones that still make something or provide an actually valuable service.

I must say, I do like the recent trend of coming fast with the death threats around here. It makes me feel at home…

I’ve been dealing with a building owner who thinks he’s going to out-smart the building department. AND he expects me to go along with his hare-brained scheme. Because obviously he’s the last client I’ll ever have or need and therefore I can piss in the face of a huge government bureaucracy that I have to deal with all the time just to make his life a little simpler.

I’ve been dealing with a building owner who thinks he’s going to out-smart the building department. AND he expects me to go along with his hare-brained scheme. Because obviously he’s the last client I’ll ever have or need and therefore I can piss in the face of a huge government bureaucracy that I have to deal with all the time just to make his life a little simpler.

I have those arguments pretty often when I’m writing specs for those um…guys who do the design work and represent the owners…I forget what you call them…

Anyway, this last dickweed decided that he didn’t need panic hardware on his assembly occupancy. I said my standard response, well IBC says you do, and I won’t write a specification that isn’t code compliant. He says “I’LL GET A VARIANCE!”. I said “Ok, you get me that variance and I’ll write your specification the way you want it.”.

Oddly, said variance never made it to my desk. I don’t know why they don’t just comply with the regulations. I swear most of them don’t really care about the inconvience or aesthetic issues they claim to be so damn worried about, I think they just have a bone to pick with the building departments.

I think she’s a total toolshed. Not likable in the least, except that she became a target of Allen West’s. That means you have at least some redeeming qualities, even if they are limited to being a female.

I haven’t been there in ages but I seem to recall they had nude go-go boys but it’s not a strip club. And yeah, it’s very much a thing and it really pisses off a lot of people. I hear they don’t tip well either.

I once saw a clip of a foriegn commercial (I don’t recall what they were selling) that started out with two guys sitting on a California beach as a beautiful young lady walks by. One says to the other, “In Europe they don’t wear any clothes at the beach, it’s like the law there.” The other replies, “cool!” The scene then cuts to two guys on the beach in France as a big fat old lady with no clothes on walks by. One says to the other, “In America everbody has to wear clothes at beach, it’s the law.” The other replies, “Cool!”

well, you both oughta be voting Republican this year, then, since they did a pretty good job last time out in ensuring that the entire profession is dead. One more go-round should do it for good.

It’s an expletive in the industry because reading and junk is NOT fundamental. In fact most contractors HATE THAT SHIT. You’re all dumb, they can’t do basic arithmetic or read too good, so you architects must all be dumb.

I’ve already seen the effects of what this recession has done to the architecture industry. Most plans now are a footprint of the building with basic dimensions, no further information. No code plans, no door schedules, outline specs that they didn’t even bother to modify to be project specific… That makes my job exceptionally difficult. I write specifications for architects. I answer technical questions for them on a daily basis. I save their asses when other distributors are trying to hose them. I have nothing against architects, I just enjoy teasing them mercilessly. That’s because I’m a born troll.

If the Repigs succeed in doing away with building and planning departments in all the municipalities and counties like they’ve been trying to do for like, EVER, architecture will be a dead profession and going to school might be more dangerous to kids than riding in a car. Still, it would be awesome if ALL the buildings were prefabricated steel buildings, wouldn’t it? YAY

Teh Ho worked on campus I used to greatly enjoy meeting for lunch, walkIng across the huge union building lawn for the scenery. After some years we found ourselves one day eyeing up the dads on parents weekend. That’s when I started feeling creepy about looking at the kids.

I always thought a strip search was something entirely different from what I learned it was. IT’S HORRIFYING. NO BOOBS AT ALL. They told me to smile, then explained what they meant by that, which made me considerably uncomfortable.

Wow, his piece is entirely ad hominem, isn’t it? Including an accusation of fascism – wow. FWIW, I think a lot of people would agree that the lengths Romney went to to avoid paying taxes is unseemly at minimum, that it’s not much of a stretch if any to say people not willing to pay for policy they vote for and support to the extent that the country is harmed is not patriotic, that it’s not fascist to point out such hypocrisy especially if the hypocrite is a member of a group which has for several decades questioned the patriotism of everyone who disagreed with their ideology, and also that the Republicans have a lot of nerve bitching about people below the poverty line not paying enough in taxes at the same time they defend Romney for it. Also too, if the Republicans loooooove the tax policy of the Cayman Islands so much why don’t they move there instead of trying to turn this country into a FOREIGN LAND?!!! In conclusion, BITE ME.

Thirded. College visits with The Young Chowderette were an exercise in (probably ineffective) discretion. Thank bog for wrap-around sunglasses.

Speaking of which, tsamantha (my daughter), is venturing out for UofW in 2 weeks. I’ll be making a weekend visit before too long and (of course) doing the creepy old perv thing, but looking you up for a drink that I so rudely bailed on when you came to my humble little shittowne.

I hate to polka hole in yer bubble but it’s more in the blues / rock / loud guitarz vein. Nakedbaconband will find examples in YouTuber land. Full disclosure: the recordings were made before I joined the band although the set list hasn’t changed much.

I hate to polka hole in yer bubble but it’s more in the blues / rock / loud guitarz vein. Nakedbaconband will find examples in YouTuber land. Full disclosure: the recordings were made before I joined the band although the set list hasn’t changed much.

COOL–I’ll check it out!

And I will warn you as a buddy to NOT look too hard at my ex. You could suffer permanent damage. The years and being married to a guy a year older than my dad have not been kind to her.

Teh Ho worked on campus I used to greatly enjoy meeting for lunch, walkIng across the huge union building lawn for the scenery. After some years we found ourselves one day eyeing up the dads on parents weekend. That’s when I started feeling creepy about looking at the kids.

It’s the best of both worlds here — if you’re a young you can ogle the other youngs. If your an old you can pretend not to ogle the youngs and ogle all the smart, liberal, nerdy scientifical professor types, with their glasses and their intellectualism and their blouse where the top button just occasionally comes undone for some reason and…

I’ll be in my bunk.

Did I just call OBS a lecherous old troll? Hmmm, I think I did.

I’m not (that) old!

I’m totally on OBS’s team.

Yay, I have a team! We’ll have to come up with a clever name and suitable mascot.

So it turns out that “Junk DNA” isn’t Junk after all. It’s instructions… or “gene switches” as they call it in an interview published in the New York Times. Errors or changes in this DNA contribute to diseases like MS, lupus, Crohn’s disease, etc. and also phenotypes such as adult height.

“I don’t think anyone predicted that would be the case.”

I fucking predicted it, and I bet anyone else familiar with software design had the same idea. When they finished mapping the Human Genome and announced that only 10% of it coded for proteins and called the rest “junk,” I was like What the fuck, ‘Junk?’ So 10% of the code describes the data structures… it’s pretty obvious the other 90% describes what you do with the structures.

It doesn’t take any fucking genius. Just being educated in something else besides your narrow specialty of research.

it’s pretty obvious the other 90% describes what you do with the structures.

I bet they just left in the debugging overhead and cryptic comments.

/* XXX TODO FIXME: warning this new algorithm is mostly untested but seems to work and speeds up this subroutine by 2% I did see one weird edge case of a malignant tumor during testing, but I haven't been able to reproduce it. Should be fine, but double check this before final release, just in case. */

I guess by now you know I’m not an entymologist. Hell I can’t even spell it.

I’m not an entymologist or a software engineer. I’m more of a boobs and ass man. I like lingerie and swimsuits, and occasionally some nice porn with the right ..er…actress. Hence my obliviousness to the genome and the previous statements that 90% of it is junk (though I would have been highly skeptical of that) and my inability to rebutt the statement.

An anonymous individual or group is alleging that they have gained “all available 1040 tax forms” of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney by accessing computers in the Franklin office of the professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[snip]

The group will release all available files to the public on the 28 of September, 2012.

Ruh roh, I smell a Rovian rat. Remember Bush’s Texas guard “forged” documents ploy that got him off the hook? If there’s one fake tax return in this whole mess, then the MSM will declare it a smear against Romney and he’ll never, ever be asked again to release his returns. Mitt will be made to look the victim here and he’ll be inoculated against the whole tax thing.

People, I am asking you not be taken in by fake persons peddling lies.
In a few days, my company, will have, cleared with lawyers the original and only true company of tape of Michelle Obama’s “Whitey” tape AND a new STARTLING ReveLATION where Barak Obama admits to shooting the president Kennedy!!
Send money for legalities now!!

Ignore the fake Editor Korir! He is only trying to rob you with bogus goods!

The Whitey tape is ALREADY released – it is only unknown in America due to the corrupt Western media who refuse to air the devastating truth of how much Michelle Obama hates white people!

NOBODY has yet released the famous “Missing 18 Minutes” tape that recently came into our possession via a government insider working for the FBI calling himself “Strep Throat” – and our independant investigator from the esteemed Weekly World News has CONFIRMED that this tape is the real thing!

Add 10% to your order and we will also include a “McCain/Palin 2008” tote-bag (all major credit cards accepted)!

Oh, I’m just as skeptical as you all… it’s gonna turn out to be a rubber Bigfoot suit made by a couple of 13 year olds.

But you’re not thinking it through. It’s a popcorn-hole stuffer no matter how you slice it.

First, it keeps Rmoney’s tax returns an item in the news cycle. He’s hoping we’ll forget about it and talk about Ryan’s marathon times instead, or Clint Eastwood, or “You didn’t build that,” or ANYTHING besides those returns. This is a big fuck you to Mitt no matter what happens, because even if they kill this item quick, the story will rise from the dead on Sep 28 whether or not the crypto key is released.

Scenario 0: Returns Real=No x Payoff=No. They release a statement falsely claiming someone paid them, implying both that the returns exist, and it’s worth $1M to someone to keep them hidden. It will become a zombie conspiracy. Moar popcorn!

Scenario 1: Returns Real=No x Payoff=Yes. Someone fucking paid! That means that there must be some real damaging shit on those returns! That’s their story and they’re gonna stick to it. It’s essentially the same as scenario 0 with the added bonus of show me the money.

Scenario 3: Returns Real=Yes x Payoff=Yes. See scenario 1. Plus they still have the option of releasing the key at a later date, with or without further blackmail.

Finally, there’s the meta scenario: the Secret Service will investigate this, since these are stolen IRS data, and it’s a Federal crime. They’ll be throwing whatever cryptoanalysis muscle they have into this, and I’m betting they’ll be able to crack the archive that was sent out, and it will wind up being a video Never Gonna Give You Up or something.

But even then, the meme of Romney’s missing tax returns will be back in the news cycle. Even better if Sep 28 rolls around before they can crack the key.

It’s a work of evil genius… beyond Rovian in its malevolent brilliance.

Do not listen to this usurper false Editor Korir, people. His claims are worthless and he will send you empty envelopes!
My company’s merchandise is verified by noted scholar Jerome Corsi!! a man of imminent reputation. As well as the Whitey/Kennedy tape there are posters and stickers from the glorious campaign of Newt Gringrich. Hand signed!!!
Do not delay!11!

Of course it’s a scam. The validity of the claim isn’t what’s important.

The real value of this piece of performance art is that it returns Mittens’ tax returns to the news cycle over and over again. Today and tomorrow, again on Sept 28, and again on the day that USSS cracks the encrypted file and declares it a fraud.

By then it will be nearly October (assuming the USSS doesn’t recruit the NSA to help crack the crypto, in which case it will probably be cracked by next Monday) and voters will have had regular servings of “Mitt Romney’s Hidden Tax Returns.”

As it should be. If this sociopath can’t be honest about how he made his money, where he keeps it, and how he pays taxes on it, what the hell else can you trust him to be honest about?

Through the epoch of evil & darkness, enduring the unspeakable horrors that we knew would blight our days & haunt our dreams for years to come, the implacable monolith of pure madness & obscenity apparently erected only to degrade & pollute all that is worthwhile in humankind, the seemingly endless litany of vile atrocities that no human being should ever have to witness, the seasons in hell with no escape in sight … somehow, flying in the face of reason, still humanity’s hope stood intact.

When God gives you capital make capitalade? Probably it would be helpful iffen he gave marma and then you could make maramlade. The question then remains of what a marma is. Ancient scholars refer to a pungent water cress like plant found in swamp areas called Marme which could be used for poultices of a mainly sexual nature. This would seem to be a little strong to be putting on toast at breakfast, but it is a big wide world, innit?
Similarly the old Swiss name for the Marten is Mermy and whilst it said that there is good eating on them little buggers, they are similarly, maybe a bit strong for the breakfast or as John Evelyn said “The Marmy stinkes like unto heaven”.
So maybe, Lord, if you aren’t too busy with keeping Curiosity from finding the good stuff, a little clarity in the Marmalade stakes? Also WTF with making the Preznit feel ill?

Forgotten how fast this site moves. Only a third of the way through the thread so pre-pologies for any AHEMable comments. Just that I wanted to answer tsam’s question:

Does anyone know if that’s the whole story? If that’s enough of it to get a clear picture, I can’t see why they should pay for gender reassignment either. It’s not critical to his/her health, strictly an elective surgery, and while there are psychological benefits, I’m not sure what real value there is in giving this person a costly treatment.

There is a rather substantial industry which caters to the desire to lecherously ogle hard bodied fresh faced twenty-somethings. It’s called popular culture.

I prefer my leer-ees to have consented to my male gazing. Not to say I don’t notice beautiful women when they are around, just that noticing takes a couple seconds at most. Less if you don’t know who they are.

Finally, on the age question. If they are old enough and competent enough for college, they are more than capable of making informed decisions about interpersonal relationships and whether to sext me whatever video files they happen to have made. But they are the ones that have to make those decisions. And we talk about young women in this regard a lot because they are the predominant targets, but my rules hold for their moms too. And I guess their dads, but I personally mean that only in a totes heterosexual way.

. If they are old enough and competent enough for college, they are more than capable of making informed decisions about interpersonal relationships and whether to sext me whatever video files they happen to have made.

But srsly – actually, not joking. If a person can manage to get into college, they are generally[1] competent enough to decide to make a sex tape. And they are competent enough to decide who to share it with. I mean yeah – kids these days offa mah lawn like getting into college is any sign of maturity etc etc. Still, if consent and personal choice means anything, then people should be allowed to exercise it[2].

Or was the question about whether or not I lust after women in their early twenties and would do anything with the tons of racy videos I get nearly constantly[3]? Generally no, but if they are moms,,, being able to juggle parenthood, college and making sex tapes is definitely the sign of an interesting person.

[1] Generally. I understand that there can be exceptions and special circumstances.
[2] To the extent that it does not interfere with others. Some negotiating and such. But consenting adults, yadda yadda.
[3] Not really.

i’ll give you college jrs and srs, but freshmen and sophomores are generally just as idiotic as their high school counterparts…and i think competence at life and interpersonal relationships are not comparable…

So, nineteen and twenty year olds. Old enough to vote. Old enough to enlist in the armed forces and get sent overseas to kill strangers. Old enough to be tried by the criminal justice system as an adult.

Not old enough to strip in front of a webcam.

I will agree that folks this age generally[1] don’t have enough life experience to make the best choices all the time. But making questionable decisions at the stage in life is part of what defines us as human beings.

That said, Ultra Ninja is a year and a half. I will most likely change my mind about all of this as she approaches that age due to my being a huge hypocrite.

[1] And I have encountered people who have more life experience in their first two decades than I have in my four.

I will agree that folks this age generally[1] don’t have enough life experience to make the best choices all the time. But making questionable decisions at the stage in life is part of what defines us as human beings.

yes…

[1] And I have encountered people who have more life experience in their first two decades than I have in my four.

oh, yes…

That said, Ultra Ninja is a year and a half. I will most likely change my mind about all of this as she approaches that age due to my being a huge hypocrite.

On the topic of Mitt’s tax returns – if he was serious about his conservative values, shouldn’t he be happy to let everyone know that he avoids taxes? That paying a lower tax rate than the average Joe while being extremely ZOMG wealthy is essentially the conservative worldview. The ultimate good – having tons of cash with very little going to the parasitical moochers.

Seriously, how can he be embarassed about having an eight figure income while paying a third the tax rate that the average American does? That is essentially the GOP economic platform.

In theory, about three-quarters of the taxpayer funding is earmarked for security, but that money is fungible — it makes the two overblown extravaganzas possible. Security for presidents, vice presidents, congressional leaders, and presidential nominees is paid for separately by the Secret Service and is provided wherever those figures go.

Who cares if it is fungible. A ton of tax dollars are earmarked for security[1] because that’s what it[1] costs (actually probably a lot moar). If that amount of money does get spent on security [1]- then it matters not a whit how fungible John Fund’s mom is[2]. It’s only an issue if the amount of money meant for security[1] isn’t spent on security[1 again].

If they are old enough and competent enough for collegeto join the military and kill people, they are more than capable of making informed decisions about interpersonal relationships and whether to sext me whatever video files they happen to have made.

So, nineteen and twenty year olds. Old enough to vote. Old enough to enlist in the armed forces and get sent overseas to kill strangers. Old enough to be tried by the criminal justice system as an adult.

Not old enough to strip in front of a webcam

Or as Seth MacFarlane said via a Teddy Bear: “Old enough to bang, but too young to get drunk.”

So, nineteen and twenty year olds. Old enough to vote. Old enough to enlist in the armed forces and get sent overseas to kill strangers. Old enough to be tried by the criminal justice system as an adult.

Because clearly it requires less judgement and wisdom and experience to decide in an instant if the person framed in the sights of a rifle deserves to live or die, than to decide on lager or doppelbock.

Now that the important business is out of the way, this is almost encouraging:

The breakdown of last year’s grand bargain talks proved a turning point. “That was a searing experience,” Mr. Plouffe recalled. The lesson: Forget negotiations and use the bully pulpit. Policy is not about applying reason; it’s about applying power.

“You’re never going to convince them by sitting around the table and talk about what’s good for the country,” said John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition and still advises him occasionally. “You had to demonstrate that there’s political pain if you don’t produce an acceptable outcome.”

No shert Shitlock! ‘Bout fucking time you idjits figured that one out. Just don’t forget it as soon as election day passes. Again.

Major — I have a similar, but opposite issue, I get allergic (nasal mostly) reactions from many lagers but not from ales. The Belgian and IPA styles you mention are both ales, so I’d imagine it’s a reaction to the yeast, as I’ve always imagined my reaction to certain lagers is (Henry’s Private Reserve makes me feel like I have a cold for about an hour). Both lagers and ales use (often the same) hops, so that shouldn’t be it. And Belgian Strongs don’t have ridiculous amounts of hops either, so that seems unlikely.

Also too &c: lots of commercial breweries use a single ale yeast strain for all their ale styles (unfortunately, IMO, but that’s another topic). If you notice a reaction to a particular brand of beer and it’s the yeast, it may be that you’d be allergic to all their beers. Generally Belgian ale yeasts are pretty different though and can also include bacterial souring so maybe there’s something else going on there too.

…if yeast type and fermentation type do not change the beer style, what does?

Yeast/fermentation type do change beers – lager are bottom fermenting and ales are top fermenting. Two distinctive styles of beer although there is a lot of variability within each style.

The variety between one lager and the next, or one ale yadda yadda. That comes from all the other stuff – original gravity, amount and nature of the hops, how dark the malt is roasted or what blend of malts are used, anti-Bavarian Purity Law additives, the temperature of fermentation, how many monks were required to develop the original recipe, the material of your wort pot, whether it is your first or fifteenth beer of the evening. Stuff like that.

I feel the same way about lager and ale that I do about coffee, steak, and sex: there’s a very wide range of acceptable, but when available I’ll take the best.

I can appreciate the finest, most well-crafted beers (the very best examples of which I’ve found at Oregon microbrew festivals, btw), but I’ll drink anything that’s not absolutely horrible (e.g., Milwaukee’s Best, Corona, anything ‘Light’) and enjoy myself.

Fortunately, there are Trader Joe’s nearly everywhere now, and they sell two of my faves: Murphy’s Stout and Full Sail Amber.

The best beer I ever tasted was a chamomile ale at a microbrew festival… I believe it was at McMenamin’s Lighthouse in Lincoln City… but that trip was an alcohol and cannabis induced haze, so it could have been Eugene.

Well, my standard for a proper Oregon trip was set in 1994 when my brother-in-law and I went to Eugene for the Dead shows at Autzen and spent the first half of the week at the Kesey Farm at Pleasant Hill. After that, I don’t remember much detail except handing out doses from a steadily dwindling sheet of completely unadulterated blotter acid, torrential rain for the first show, sunburn after the second show, and perfect weather for the third show, and then following the Merry Pranksters’ “Twister” bus around for a few shows… until we ran out of money and weed and headed home to CA.

Every other trip I’ve taken to OR has been no comparison to that trek.

OT but local LEAFS SUCK news closing up at the momento. Last time our right wing mayor caught folks attention was when his own hand-picked transit commissioner lead a revolt against him and turfed his unilaterally decreed transit plan. And since Rob Ford is Rob Ford, there’s been some other intervening lulziness about weight loss and Pride parades and such.

I believe it says something creepy about America that she is famous — famous and adored. (She is pretty, true.) Her shtick is, “Other people should pay for my birth control, even if it violates their conscience,” right? What a strange Joan of Arc she makes.

Other people should pay for my birth control, even if it violates their conscience

Those other people should really consider the ramifications of their arguments. For example, I imagine it will be a hell of a lot easier to pay for this young woman’s birth control from the pool of people whose conscience it doesn’t offend, than it might be to pay for certain land wars in Asia from a similar pool of people who think those are a good idea.

I enjoyed this, when I read it in the papyrus edition, enough to go and sign in to copy it. A supporter of ‘the Romney’, interviewed by Dan Halperin for an article on ‘the Romney’ in Harper’s.

At another stop in New Hampshire, a lunch visit to Village Pizza in Newport, I meet a middle-aged white guy working as a temp who is, I imagine, somewhere off to the side of what the Republican National Committee would like the country to think of as its base. This man likes Ron Paul. “This country’s tanked, we’re going bankrupt,” he says. “We can’t continue to support global socialism. My uncle’s a thirty-second-degree Mason with forty-seven years in the military, and he says so. We the people, policing all the strays in Europe—you can’t do that anymore! A North American Union, that’s what’s coming, and then a civil war—war, for sure, especially if there’s a small-arms treaty. We have three hundred million gun owners in this country. What if a hundred million revolt? We’re coming. We’re coming for this government. If it were up to me I’d have these people beheaded after shooting them. They’re also behind the grid going down, by the way. This government is ruling by fiat, and they’re behind the blackouts. What blackouts? Please, man. Don’t pretend you don’t know. This is Americana! Out here? That’s why I live here. Americana! These false ideologies, of multiculturalism, of globalism, will destroy us. The blackouts have to do with solar energy, the sunspots—and Obama’s behind it. Well, Romney’s no better. But we’ve had enough of this Marxist socialist Muslim traitor! We’ve had enough of the radical black agenda. Mr. Romney looks prepared, but he doesn’t stand true.”

Wait, no I don’t. WTF is wrong with all these people? Since when does the MRA squad jump to the defense of Catholics with their Kennedys and their and funny hats and their child rape and such? OH, since Obama tried to keep them from excluding coverage for their employees at places like hospitals where the whole birth control thing is totally not taken seriously.

Laika’s stop-motion animated zombie comedy “ParaNorman” has a character named Mitch, who is, of course, a heavily-muscled jock who seems heterosexual until the end of the movie, at which time a girl named Courtney asks him if he wants to see a movie.

It’s a time-honored technique of the gay community to hide the fact that a character is gay until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is gay.

It’s a time-honored technique of the gay community to hide the fact that a character is gay until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is gay.

Before you know it, you’re having buttsex and LIKING IT! Those crafty homos. What will they think of next?

It’s a time-honored technique of the gay community to hide the fact that a character is gay until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is gay.

I don’t recall the character Mitch as being all that likeable. He’s a secondary character who is kind of an amiable doofus.

Michael Hampton
And you won’t be happy until it’s just like the olden days. When you could punch a woman in the face in public and people would just assume that she was asking for it. When you could hang a black man for winking at your wife and people would thank you at church on Sunday. And when you could stab a gay guy and no one would ever hear about it. Remember? How many times did you molest your own children?

Was answered by this:

MELAS_URU has a valid concern. You, Michael, tried to disqualify his by offering up real sins of the past that are unrelated. Bad logic. Me suspect you a lib troll! ***UPDATE: just checked your profile…you ARE a lib troll.

Fuck. We can barely get that many to get out of their Barcaloungers and vote for a President. He’s saying that they’ll all go in for armed insurrection and all the physical exercise that goes with it? Yah, right.

It’s a time-honored technique of the gay community to hide the fact that a character is gay until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is gay.

It must be tiring to be so constantly outraged. You have to go back and re-read a comic but this time hating one of the subsidiary characters, you have to go around waffling on to strangers about imaginary revolutions, you have to have some wierd-shit idea about Star Trek and pretend that it’s a real thing.
Fuck that.

I was just pointing out that story-tellers rarely divulge everything on the first page

I was pointing out that a tangential little surprise toward the end of the movie to get a laugh out of the audience is JUST LIKE HITLER AND STALIN AND OBAMA. Plus if kids SEE gay people, they will BE gay people. Especially if they get tricked into LIKING an icky gay.

I work in a lab part-time. One of the people there is gay. Now I wear a labcoat all the time and gloves most of the time but I am in the same room frequently and I sit in chairs they have sat in at times.
What sort of risk do I have of catching teh ghey germs?
Also that person is friendly and helpful and knowledgeable TO EVERYONE! So cunning eh! By golly it’s lucky that the righties can type through the buzzing noises in their heads to warn us.

Cause there has NEVER been an openly gay character in an animated movie or series. Nope. Yeah, maybe if you erased like every other country’s (especially Japan’s) animated productions, all the indie American stuff too…

Heck, let’s just limit it to Disney animated movies and even then, honestly, Malificent and the Evil Queen from Snow White are a little too obsessed if you know what I mean.

But yeah, the whole thing can be summarized. What! A gay person is just a person rather than a horned demon out to slaughter all straight people? Having me discover this is worse than 20 Hiroshimas and a Transformers 3!!!!

It’s a time-honored technique of the gay community to hide the fact that a character is gay until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is gay.

Like somebody said, this is a storytelling technique. But it led me to think about JK Rowling. She is really open about the fact that her protagonists are wizards. And of course the fundies detest wizards, but perhaps worse, she let slip that one kindly old wizard is gay — which is to say, she thinks of him as a gay character but never outs him in print. (SNL had a fun skit on this topic.) All of which leads me to a potentially fun fundie/wingnut poking technique:

It’s a time-honored technique of the wizard community to hide the fact that a character is a wizard until the audience has developed a real affinity for him/her, then catch the audience off-guard by divulging that the character is a wizard.

No. Well, maybe if you have a traumatic brain injury then it might make sense to you,

Actually, if you think enough about it, it becomes this weird, almost meta concept. A cartoon that tries to use the bizarre Clint Eastwood thing against(?) the Democrats ends up being as bizarre and nonsensical as the thing itself. It’s almost Escheresque.

Ah ahahahahahahahahCatalino the so-called cartoonist has a bit of a thang for the empty chair.
It’s a meme innit, and as in the playground, merely repeating it causing trouser wetting glee. Actually being a smidgen funny doesn’t come into it.

I just watched Bill Clinton’s convention speech in full, and I’ve gotta say holy shit. I can’t remember where I differ (and I do) with this speaker. That was a speech like few others I’ve seen or, I suspect, read about.

If the republican party has Clinton’s equivalent, let them show him to the arena. What the fuck. This guy is a titan; and whatever my considerable misgivings, there’s a solid bench behind him, not to mention Obama. The (r) side is a smattering of cretins and worse. God damn …

From Slate:
Regarding Twitter attacks against Sandra Fluke following her speech at the DNC…

A shout-out is owed to those who managed to avoid the baffling sex jokes, and instead went straight for the kill: Women expressing opinions out loud in public is the scariest thing that has ever happened.

Todd Kincannon, whoever the fuck that is, via Twitter:

Sandra Fluke’s speech was the most hateful, strident, angry speech I’ve ever heard at a political convention. Ever.

Slate:

For those who missed the speech, here is the most angry, strident thing a woman has ever uttered:

In that America, your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. Who won’t stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party. It would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure invasive ultrasounds we don’t want and our doctors say we don’t need. An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve help, and which don’t. We know what this America would look like. In a few short months, it’s the America we could be. But it’s not the America we should be. It’s not who we are.

On some level, conservatives must know how bad their reaction to Fluke makes them look, and how out of touch they must sound to regard premarital sex, which has been engaged in by 95 percent of Americans, like it’s a freak show instead of a normal part of life. But apparently, they can’t help it. As for the Democrats, convention organizers demonstrated that they know their enemies very well with this move, which bodes well for the upcoming election.

That’s one reason I hate Bill Clinton so much. He’s the guy who hamstringed the aid to families programs (calling that welfare reform), signed Phil Gramm’s hand written legislation in the last 2 minutes of his presidency that deregulated the shit out of the banking, finance and insurance industries, and heavily promoted and signed NAFTA.

On top of that, he makes me want to jump out of my seat and yell FUCK YEAH! when he’s giving a speech because he’s SO FUCKING GOOD. He’s only getting better as he gets older. Then I have to remind myself that he was pretty much a Republican, and that he has a Southern accent, which is the mark of the beast.

Clinton made a point of not hamstringing, but throat-cutting hopes for rebooting the U.S.’ O.S. and here I am kissing his ass for it. <Being glib.

I bought the Obama’s bullshit too and have yet to forgive myself. These days I’m glad to see Clinton as a weapon in the fight against the Robber Baron candidate and his Boy Plunder. That’s all we’ve got to hang on to anymore, it seems.

How this politician, with these views, leads me to the seraglio
I have heard some New Zilder describe being in room when Clinton paid a surprise visit and the guy saying “I did not see him but I felt him walk in”. A compelling guy, apparently.

Yesterday I reread a Dave Neiwert piece (here) and in light of it, that editorial cartoon is just another example of the Right accusing its critics of Waving the Bloody Shirt.

The American Right does harbor (and other verbs) liars, racists, women-haters, and ideological extremists, including ones who kill. The cartoon comes from an outraged sense of persecution: the real crime is to speak out against them, it says.

Is that really how the sheepublicans see those men? Romney like a genetic hybrid of Dick Nixon and George Hamilton, and Ryan as some 80?s sitcom dad with a goofy smile and puppydog eyes?

Well, anyone who’s planning on voting for them that doesn’t have a couple million in the bank, sure isn’t looking at the republican candidates very closely. Or it’s not so much that they are voting for republicans, as they are voting against Obama.

They see Romney for exactly what he is. A sleazy liar who will say or do anything to get elected. Normally that would be fine with Republicans, since they’ll pretty much believe anything you tell them as long as there is a reference to God attached to it and a record of channelling government funds away from people and into the hands of defense contractors, oil tycoons and Wall Street barons. Romney has Romneycare and a ton of liberal-ish statements on video from his race against Kennedy. That sort of business isn’t forgiven or forgotten among Repigs.

It IS a heroic act. Don’t forget about guns. Democrats are chomping at the bit to take them all away. You guys know that. As soon as they find someone dumb enough to go knock on a door in rural Mississippi and demand the guns, that is. Lots of volunteers for that job, yes?

I’m a staunch liberal, meaning I can’t find any reason to change how I feel about liberty and justice for ALL, (not just people I think meet some standard of what I feel is truly American), but I am a tentative Democrat at best. It’s a heroic act to get the fuck over yourself and use your vote to stick up for things that you don’t understand, or that you even dislike. It’s rather chickenshit to vote a party line without a little bit of thought about who you’re empowering.

Well shit. This place has so little going on I’ve been amusing myself by slapping the GayPutzRioters up the head. I enjoy picturing them foaming at the mouth, they’re so angry! I think of myself as an anti-troll … wait, make that a nega-troll over there, riling them up into virtual paroxysms by using logic and reason and stuff.

I could ramble on about random inconsequential beer factoids some more, I know how everyone enjoys that.

Or, if you’re a runner (like me) you could go read this interesting article about a guy that apparently concocted an elaborate scheme to cheat and fake a bunch of sub 3-hour marathon finishes (sorta like a more determined Lyin’ Ryan). And the best part is that they know he cheated, but still can’t figure out exactly how he managed to do it.

I read that New Yorker article in print, OBS. Very interesting. The marathon faker is quite a piece of work. I wonder if he’ll ever drop the bullshit. He does resemble a certain type of politician in that he just keeps bullshitting, adjusting his rap, claiming victimhood long after every sane observer has written him off. The journalist is right (IIRC) that in an absurd and frustrating sense this guy wins if nobody can figure out precisely how the scam works.

Better yet, how about some really shitty jokes that combine tastelessness and sexual harassment? Those are always the funniest ones.

I’ve noticed the bitchez love those things. There is no corrolation between those and my relationship status (single for the forseeable future and being far more interested in getting a fishing boat than a girlfriend).

The remote-controlled cockroach is remarkable, worth at least a WTF, but you hid that candle under a bushel, or something.

The researchers’ means of control are really simple, brutal and creepy. I would have assumed some knowledge of how a nervous system works would be required, but no, just a black-box grasp of how the roach acts on signals from the antennae and eyes.

See, the problem is this. I’ve been dating here and there for the last year. I’ve confirmed via my own testing that the axiom about 30-40 something singles are single for a REASON (including me, yes), and all I found out there were two extremes. 1) The stuck up, snobby asshole that won’t give you the time of day. 2) The clingy, needy train wreck that can’t seem to come to terms with me having a life outside of a relationship that I haven’t even established yet.

So I gave up. When my daughters are out of the house, I’ll go fishing, play golf, go see cool stuff like Civil War sites, DC, New Orleans, The Keys, New York, San Francisco, Mexico, Europe, Australia, and YES NEW FUCKING ZEALAND, maybe stop in on a Sadly in NZ, also go to Vegas and see naked hot girls dancing, etc…

I’ve got lots of stuff I want to do and I’ve gotten pretty used to the idea of being alone. I’m thinking that was my destiny, determined by my personality type. I guess that type is surly asshole?

That is fast — I’m a “fit, decent runner who trains” and there’s no fucking way I could get down to sub 3:00. No. Fucking. Way. That’s why Lyin’ Ryan’s false claim was jumped on so quickly — it’s hard.

A summary of the characters spread across the Internet by Murphy’s team also explains that, “Lange now takes on Sister Jude, a nun who’s more sadistic than saintly.” Monsignor O’Hara will be the subject of the nun’s sexual desires: “Sister Jude’s superior finds himself on the receiving end of the nun’s affections (and fantasies), but he’s not entirely innocent. Not unlike the red lingerie under Jude’s habit, there are dark intentions under Monsignor O’Hara’s grace and piety. This year, he’ll be subject to Sister Jude’s brutal punishment (read: shackles, canes).”

Entertainment Weekly quoted Lange that Sister Jude has “a lot of bad history and secrets that would threaten her if it came out.” The magazine added this character “used to be a girl named Judy who drank and slept her way around Massachusetts.” Actor Joseph Fiennes, who plays Monsignor O’Hara, suggests “clearly she’s attracted to the monsignor for his grace and religiousness…and the monsignor might play with that, manipulate that.”

The magazine also reported “Sister Jude serves as the Nurse Ratched to Briarcliff’s troubled inmates.” That’s a reference to the villain of the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” who was a vicious, dictatorial ruler of a mental asylum.

Does this sound to anyone with brainwaves like a Catholic nun and priest attempting to “do their best” to be faithful to God and his church?

I guess I shouldn’t judge by the people I know, who apparently are pretty fast, but the runners I heard or read on it doubted it not because it was out of the realm of possibility but because 1. he ran only one, and it’s the sort of time you don’t just get if you don’t run marathons but mainly 2. he didn’t know his exact time, which according to them is like forgetting your own birthday.

I run. Well not really, mostly I jog. When I was jogging “regularly” my usual outing was 10 km in an hour – mostly flat street running. I’m a bit slower now that I’m pushing a stroller with me.

But when I started I noticed the improvement in my pace and distance, and it is pretty remarkable. It is certainly not inconceivable for someone in their 30’s or 40’s to pick up running and get to sub-3. Especially if they are independently wealthy and have all the time in the world to train. And are obsessive A-type personalities with Marathon sized egos and a compulsive need to win. Given that, it is actually kinda surprising that Lyin’ Ryan has not completed a sub-3. Excepting for the fact that he totally sucks.

True. At my fastest, my fast “run” was four miles in half an hour. Sub-3 is faster than that for four times as long. It is not easy.

BUT, I started jogging in my thirties. Prior to that, aside from the occasional canoe/hiking trip my level of exercise consisted of maybe lifting and carrying a two four. And I was jogging just for the sake of it. I have never run in an actual race. Do no actual driver to improve. Those “regular” outings were twice a week, with maybe one or two shots at the fast run in a month.

Someone in Ryan’s position, pathologically aggressive and competitive? In his twenties he worked as personal trainer. By his thirties he was a Congressman. He certainly had the drive to get to sub-3 and later on the resources to be able to devote the time into getting there. I am actually surprised that he never bothered to run at least one more marathon two minutes faster to break the four hour mark. It is actually quite weird.

This is bad news for the world of competitive cockroach racing. I foresee the disruption of future events by allegations and counter-allegations of illegal hardware and hacking into other teams’ controls.

3) Racism culture: Even black Americans who are extremely prosperous and have never been significantly harmed by racism in their lives feel compelled to talk about America as if Democrats like George Wallace and Bull Connor were still running wild. There are three reasons for that.

A) It’s at the core of the Democrats’ political strategy in dealing with black Americans. No matter how poorly served black Americans are by the Democrats, they won’t listen to what Republicans have to say with an open mind if they’re falsely convinced we hate them.

B) If you say that racism is no longer a serious problem for black Americans, then there still has to be some sort of explanation given for why black Americans aren’t doing that well compared to white Americans. Many black Americans fear that other Americans might conclude that the old school Democratic racists were right and they are inferior. This is why pointing out that racism isn’t a serious impediment for black Americans today can almost come across like a slap, as opposed to a plain statement of obvious fact.

C) Shouting “racism” is easy and it doesn’t require you to do anything other than complain. Tackling other issues that are hurting black Americans like children being born out of wedlock and out of control crime in the inner cities is really hard.

Most Republicans do not consider racism to be a significant impediment to success anymore and that puts us up against a deeply ingrained, shared cultural belief with black Americans.

In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterfuck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I’m fairly certain you might need it.

Sincerely,
Chris Kluwe

P.S. I’ve also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your “I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing” and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. Asshole.

I can’t believe Bozell hasn’t burst a ton of blood vessels in his giant dome. I can’t imagine the rage fits that end with him sobbing on the floor in the fetal position because somebody said fuck and he heard it.
Dude: chill. The. Fuck. Out. Have a beer, a few pretzels, a little more MSG…turn on those Dallas Cowboys on your TV. Lock your doors, close your mind. It’s time for the two minute warning.
Lyrics by The Very Philosopher Jello Biafra.

Our Lady of the Blessed Grizzly Bear is just a nobody, she says so!
It’s from Crooks and Liars so it’s not me saying “look at this amazing thing I found” but it made me LOL.
Also the bit that says:Kerry’s single acknowledgement of Palin was one more mention than she received from Republicans during their convention last month.

“Yeah, I did say in Alaska you can see Russia from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to transportation corridors and resources that are shared and fought over, Alaska and I as the governor had known what I was doing in dealing with some international issues that had to do with our resources that could help secure the nation,” she insisted.

“Yeah, I did say in Alaska you can see lustful cockmonsters from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to lustful cockmonsters and resources that are shared and fought over, Alaska and I as the governor had known what I was doing in dealing with lustful cockmonsters that had to do with our lustful cockmonsters could help secure the lustful cockmonsters.”

Yeah, I did say in Alaska you can see Russia from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to transportation corridors and resources that are shared and fought over, Alaska and I as the governor had known what I was doing in dealing with some international issues that had to do with our resources that could help secure the nation,” she insisted.

Somewhere, a gorgeous, yet tragically confused beauty pageant contestant is saying “lol, what a dumb bitch and such as…”

Conversation above makes me wonder what I’d be like if I were dating these days. Would I be needy?Probably not. Never was in the past. Too aloof? Possible. I tend not to like to lose control in relationships.

I couldn’t date, period, now, because I never get a break from my son. But I wonder if any guy would ultimately take a back seat to my art. *shrug* WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

You won’t be single in your 40s. You don’t have a disturbing princess complex and You do have enough self confidence to keep your life and responsibilities in perspective. You are capable of making a relationship work, so you can’t try to wiggle into on of those categories.

That reminds me of returning to LA during the Station Fire, after spending a week camping in Yosemite.

We came back over the Grapevine at night, and the entire SE sky was glowing red. Then making our way East on I-210, the entire view on the left side was mountainsides on fire, for nearly 20 miles. Wickedly beautiful, and scary too. Our home is removed from the urban/forest interface, but not enough to be immune from a windstorm-driven fire, like what happened in Eaton Canyon in 1993…

I would give you another solution if you would only drop the trackpad requirement. Also too and such as, it is customary to thank people JUST FOR TRYING. But no, I said there’s no need to thank me. Really. *sniff*

Some engineering/geek type pr0n. It’s less than a 1/4 mile from me but on the other side of the building. Looking south, however, I have my scope trained on another bridge “erection.” it’s pretty neat. They are building temporary approaches and temporary piers. The plan is to slide the old deck onto the temporary supports, build a new bridge in place of the old one then finally removing the old bridge and temporary stuff.

So my conservative mom is in town. We’ve mostly got along fine, but she’s pissed that people who don’t believe in contraception and abortion should hafta pay for ’em. Denies that her party is moving in a radical direction. I point out a few things; interestingly, then, it turns out that she didn’t understand that the Republican platform is anti-abortion, full stop, no exceptions for rape and incest. She starts in about “partial-birth” abortions, and the poor doctors who are forced to perform them …

But no. Their platform is quite clear (see “Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life”). Paragraph one of that subheading is a statement of principles. Paragraphs two and three are victories and kudos and incremental steps on the road to a full ban. But my point is that some people, like my mother, have been hearing paragraph 2-3 type talk for years and thinking “oh yeah, let’s ban icky late-term abortions, let’s ban all these sex-selective abortions I’ve been hearing about lately.” She apparently takes it on faith that her fellow travelers are what she thinks of as reasonable people re: rape, incest, life of the mother. (I don’t try to argue for abortion on demand, it’d be pointless with mom.)

Yet, even with good and evil enveloped in fog, progressive narratives remain sharply Manichaean: You can always tell the heroes from the villains. Obama is a hero because he cares. Conservatives are villains because they don’t. And Republicans are villains because they are conservative.
None of these statements is true, of course. Obama cares about Obama, which is hardly heroic. Conservatives are repulsed by government intrusions into the private sphere because we believe private citizens are better than government’s social engineers at promoting prosperity for everyone. And today’s Republican party is not very conservative: At a time when the welfare state is — inevitably — collapsing of its own weight, Romney and Ryan run as its guardians. They’ve come to praise Caesar, not to bury him.

Certainly, the media, the academy, and most of our society’s major institutions are heavily influenced by progressives, if not outright controlled by them.